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05. 22. 2019

Shannon Watts on how to ‘fight like a mother’ and the power of ‘losing forward’

Today, the nonpartisan Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America is the nation’s largest grassroots organization, with more than five million members. “I always felt, from the very beginning, that moms were the yin to the gun lobby’s yang,” she says. “The gun lobby preys on the fear of a very vocal minority that their guns will be taken away. But there are 80 million moms in this country, and they’re afraid their children will be taken away. I really felt that that was emotion that would be the most effective counter to the gun lobby.
05. 17. 2019

Inside Levi’s stand against gun violence

At the company’s “community day” at its San Francisco headquarters in May, before employees headed out to volunteer with local organizations, Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action–one of the gun-control organizations that Levi Strauss is supporting–spoke to a crowd of hundreds of workers. Watts told Fast Company that she’s seen a large shift in how willing companies are to step forward about guns. “When I started this work, and that was the day after the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012, there were no companies that wanted to get involved in this issue,” she says. The organization had to fight to get companies like Target to ask customers not to carry firearms into stores. (Like Levi’s, Target employees don’t actively enforce this request.)
05. 14. 2019

NRA board member Allen West calls for CEO Wayne LaPierre's removal

North announced earlier in May that he would not run for re-election after multiple news outlets published prominent articles detailing alleged financial mismanagement by top officials at the organization. Shannon Watts, an activist who founded Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America, said the gun control organization Everytown For Gun Safety had filed its own complained to the IRS over the NRA's tax-exempt status. Additionally, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., a 2020 presidential candidate, said he also plans to call on the IRS to investigate the NRA's alleged misconduct.

At the N.R.A., a Cash Machine Sputtering

Each day, there’s a new drip, drip, drip,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control group. “The N.R.A. is not a gun advocacy organization but a business that has been engaged in self-dealing, awarding contracts with little accountability to their friends, and it seems like a business run amok. It’s questionable whether they can play in 2020 the way they have in the past.
05. 13. 2019

Shannon Watts: Join the millions of moms fighting back

Moms. Get. Stuff. Done. Shannon says that’s why moms are the best activists; they can multitask well. Now, Moms Demand Action has a chapter in every state. One of Shannon’s proudest achievements is that 25 states have passed legislation to disarm domestic abusers, thanks to her and her team.
05. 13. 2019

Winners and losers of the biggest state political battles of the year, so far

The NRA counts its own victories and counters that it has been so successful expanding gun laws — some form of public carry laws exists in all 50 states — that there isn’t as much for them to do. But Eve Jorgensen is a Moms Demand Action volunteer in Arkansas who said there was a noticeable shift in momentum for the gun-control side compared with just two years ago. "In the past, even Democrats didn’t really want to talk with us in public,” she said. “Now we had some moderate Republicans standing with us.
05. 10. 2019

Why is America so violent?

Gun laws in America have barely changed, despite hundreds of mass shootings over the past decade. Yet when a gunman opened fire on two mosques in New Zealand, the country’s leaders banned assault rifles less than a week later. Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, joins Nick Bilton to explain why America is so obsessed with guns and violence, why the N.R.A. is so vulnerable right now, and how a grassroots movement is trying to change how easy it is to get an assault rifle in the United States.
05. 08. 2019

The 50 most powerful moms of 2019

When Shannon Watts decided to start a gun safety organization after the Newtown massacre, she tried to find a guide to creating a grassroots group and couldn’t. So, she wrote one: Fight Like a Mother: How a Grassroots Movement Took on the Gun Lobby and Why Women Will Change the World is being published by HarperCollins in May 2019 and will provide readers with a roadmap for creating change through grassroots activism. Watts has learned a lot in the six years since that horrible day. What began as a Facebook group has grown into a political powerhouse. Taking a page from their nemesis, the NRA, Everytown for Gun Safety (the umbrella organization) created the Moms Demand Action Gun Sense Candidate distinction in the last election cycle.
04. 30. 2019

The NRA Is A Crashed Car On Fire, Ready To Explode

The NRA’s recent embarrassments could pale in comparison to what happens next. Following The Trace’s report, Shannon Watts of the gun safety group Moms Demand Action said its parent organization, Everytown, had filed a complaint with the IRS over the NRA’s tax-exempt status. Everytown “is calling on the IRS, Congress, and state charities regulators to investigate the [NRA], its officers and board members to determine if a pattern of financial mismanagement and self-dealing is so pervasive as to jeopardize their tax-exempt charity status,” Watts said in a Twitter thread.
04. 30. 2019

The NRA’s big, bad financial mismanagement crisis, explained

Opponents of the NRA have certainly noticed the organization’s current problems. Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a gun control group founded in 2012 after the Sandy Hook shooting, and its parent organization, Everytown for Gun Safety, filed a formal complaint with the IRS specifically calling attention to the NRA’s financial practices earlier this month. “It’s clear that the NRA is in panic mode,” Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, told me. “The organization is in decline, and its leaders are starting to fight among themselves.” When I asked whether she thought the NRA was in real jeopardy, she said, “What happens to the NRA if it loses its nonprofit status is an open question. As an organization, this is the weakest and most vulnerable it’s been in decades.
04. 28. 2019

NRA's Finances And Charitable Foundation's Tax Exempt Status Under Investigation By New York Attorney General

The New York attorney general has reportedly ordered the organization – including its charitable foundation – to preserve all its financial records and issued subpoenas to related businesses. James’ office confirmed in a statement, reported by The Times , that it “has issued subpoenas,” but would “not have further comment at this time.” Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control group, earlier this month filed an official complaint with the IRS about the NRA, according to The Hill. It called for an investigation into whether the gun rights group had violated tax laws dealing with charitable organizations.
04. 25. 2019

Trump Heads to NRA Convention as Disagreements Over His Gun Policies Simmer

The NRA has also been fighting against a renewed push for gun control since a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in 2018. Hoping to capitalize on the NRA’s internal struggles, the gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety is planning an ad blitz in Indianapolis this week with billboards and online ads highlighting what it calls “the NRA in crisis.
04. 24. 2019

On the eve of the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Indianapolis, Ind., the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety has unveiled a new ad campaign that argues the organization is “becoming more fringe and more toxic to the Americans it has long claimed to represent.” The $100,000 campaign will include online ads, digital billboards along I-70 between the Indiana Convention Center and the Indianapolis International Airport and a full-page ad in the IndyStar that will run in the print edition Thursday through Saturday. The NRA did not immediately return a request for comment.
04. 19. 2019

On Thursday, Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action announced that the gun safety group Everytown had filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service over the NRA’s tax-exempt status. (Everytown is the parent organization of Moms Demand Action.) Everytown “is calling on the IRS, Congress, and state charities regulators to investigate the [NRA], its officers and board members to determine if a pattern of financial mismanagement and self-dealing is so pervasive as to jeopardize their tax-exempt charity status,” Watts said in a tweet thread.
04. 19. 2019

Gun control group files complaint over NRA's tax-exempt status

A gun control group has filed an IRS complaint against the National Rifle Association (NRA), calling for an investigation into whether the gun rights organization violated tax laws surrounding charitable organizations. "The NRA is a purported charity and exempt from federal tax under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code and we write today to alert you to what we believe are activities that clearly fall outside of the NRA’s charitable purpose and mission," Everytown for Gun Safety said in a letter attached to their complaint filed Thursday.
04. 01. 2019

Buttigieg is a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan group within the Everytown network that's comprised over 1,000 mayors advocating for gun safety. Think: Advancing policies and practices that reduce firearm suicides; and minimizing shootings by the police. After Parkland, he supported the young people within his community demanding that our country ends gun violence.
03. 28. 2019

Her husband tried to kill her. Now Christy Martin is standing up for abuse survivors

She also works closely with Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit that advocates for reforms to combat gun violence. Salters is a gun owner. "I grew up in West Virginia," she said by way of explanation. The pink pistol Martin shot her with was her own. It's still in evidence, but she has other guns, something she said occasionally causes tension with her wife.
03. 26. 2019

After Parkland & Sandy Hook suicides, the Senate is making a move on gun reform

The scene on Tuesday morning was more like that of a sold-out event than a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Starting at 8 a.m., volunteers and activists, most of them in red Moms Demand Action shirts, lined up in the Senate hallway for a chance to attend the committee's hearing on extreme risk protection orders, commonly known as red-flag laws.
03. 22. 2019

Gun control advocates take a different approach in deep red states

Last year, the big debate at the state Capitol was not whether or not to pass stand your ground legislation, but how far to push the definition in favor of a shooter who claims self-defense. Idaho Moms Demand Action opposed both bills and counted it as a victory when the less permissive bill passed. This year, while some gun legislation opposed by the group is moving forward, one bill they packed a committee room to oppose died. It would have prevented school districts from restricting people with enhanced concealed carry permits from being armed on K-12 public school campuses. Some local Moms Demand Action activists joke that their legislative approach is “failing forward.
03. 12. 2019

Dick’s Sporting Goods shifts from guns even as sales suffer

He recently signed an open letter supporting universal background-check legislation that last month became the first major gun control measure in decades to pass the House. Along with executives from Levi Strauss and RXR Realty, he became one of the first members of a business council organized by Everytown for Gun Safety, a major gun safety advocacy group. He is looking into smart gun technology now being developed, calling it “helpful from a gun violence standpoint.”
03. 12. 2019

Dick's Sporting Goods is removing even more guns from stores

The company's 2018 revenue was down almost 2 percent to $8.4 billion, a dip that Stack has attributed to slower firearm sales, a change in Under Armour's distribution strategy and a weak performance in electronics sales. Stack has expressed optimism about Under Armour going forward, and Dick's has now fully exited the electronics business. Last month, Stack was one of four CEOs to sign a letter supporting a universal gun control bill that recently passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, and he recently joined the business council of Everytown, a nonprofit that advocates for gun control. (Everytown was founded by Michael Bloomberg, owner of Bloomberg News' parent company.)
03. 01. 2019

Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund is running digital ads to try to hold accountable lawmakers who voted against expanding background checks in the House this week. The ads, obtained first by Roll Call, target five Republicans who voted against the so-called Bipartisan Background Check Act of 2019, as well as the two Democrats who opposed it. The legislation would require background checks for all gun sales between private individuals.
02. 28. 2019

How to Get the H.R. 8 Universal Background Checks Bill Passed in the Senate

On Wednesday, February 27, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the most historic piece of gun legislation our country has seen in decades—the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, a.k.a. H.R. 8—in a vote of 240 to 190. If the Senate passes the bill, hundreds of thousands of American lives would be spared from gun violence. MarieClaire.com spoke to Moms Demand Action Founder Shannon Watts to discuss the groundbreaking universal background checks bill, and what Americans can do to help it pass through the U.S. Senate.
02. 27. 2019

House Passes Sweeping Gun Bill

In a statement John Feinblatt, president of the anti-gun violence group Everytown for Gun Safety, praised lawmakers for "stepping up." "We applaud Speaker Pelosi and the bipartisan coalition of House members who supported this bill for stepping up and doing their part to close the giant — and deadly — loopholes in America's background checks law.
02. 27. 2019

House Passes First Major Gun Control Law in Decades

But gun control activists have praised both background check measures as a critical first step in a broader drive to reduce gun violence. “America’s current background check system is like having two types of security lines at the airport: one for people who are willing to be screened, and one you can waltz right through carrying whatever you want,” said John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “We applaud the House for moving so quickly.
02. 27. 2019

House pushes through first major gun bill in a generation

Television ads run by Everytown for Gun Safety highlighting the need for tougher gun laws increased 22 fold from four years ago, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. In tossup House races, 93 percent of gun-related ads favored stricter gun measures, the Journal analysis found. Many of the candidates who ran openly on a platform to curb gun violence won, even in traditionally Republican areas like Texas. For instance, of the 307 federal and local candidates Giffords endorsed, 256 were victorious. They also include new members such as Lucy McBath of Georgia, who lost her son, Jordan Davis, in 2012.
02. 26. 2019

In fact, Stack is doing even more to get behind his company's efforts last year. He, along with a handful of other CEOs, on Monday signed onto a letter sent to Congress in support of the HR8 background check bill. Background checks are something "both sides of the aisle can get behind it," Stack said. He's also recently joined Everytown Business Leaders for Gun Safety, arguing for gun safety across the U.S. And Dick's Sporting Goods continues to invest in Sports Matter, a business it created to fund youth sports teams.
02. 25. 2019

CEOs urge Congress to expand gun background checks

John Feinblatt is president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy group. He points to banks and other retailers that have adopted their own policies on gun control over the last year. "This is a key moment, very much like the moment when corporations supported marriage equality, which was often seen as a turning point for that movement," Feinblatt says.
02. 14. 2019

How gun-violence-prevention laws have changed since the Parkland shooting

“What research tells us is that one of the most effective ways to prevent gun violence is to make sure that people with dangerous histories don't have access to guns,” Everytown’s Kilgour says. She notes that the issue has long been a focus for Moms Demand Action, what she calls “the grassroots arm of Everytown.” “The thing that's interesting about the progress on domestic violence policies last year is that it kind of married the post-Parkland outrage with the work that advocates in the states had been doing for a really long time to pass these policies,” Kilgour explains. “You saw states like Pennsylvania, where volunteers with Moms Demand Action spent four years advocating for a domestic violence bill; that bill finally became law last year.”
02. 14. 2019

How Gun Laws—and Gun Norms—Have Changed Since the Parkland Shooting

We saw something in Parkland after the shooting that we hadn’t really seen anywhere before which was an entire community came together and galvanized around one clear call to action for stronger gun laws," Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, tells Esquire. "That really kept it at the forefront of the national conversation for so long, a much wider window than we’ve seen after these tragedies in the past.
02. 13. 2019

A better-funded movement is growing to counter the NRA

JOHN FEINBLATT: It was considered the third rail of American politics. MAK: That's John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown For Gun Safety. FEINBLATT: That was true for Democrats, it was true for Republicans - no more. MAK: And the NRA is mired in a Senate investigation into whether it worked with Russia to influence American politics in 2016. Feinblatt also points out that the NRA spent less money in the 2018 midterms than in previous midterms. FEINBLATT: The NRA staged a disappearing act. They were really nowhere to be seen compared to previous years.
02. 12. 2019

How Democratic presidential politics on guns has shifted

In 2020, no one will talk about guns the way Clinton did in 2008. “Certainly any Democratic candidate who goes into early primary delegate-rich states like Nevada, California and Virginia, they will be talking about gun safety,” Everytown for Gun Safety President John Feinblatt told POLITICO. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who is a founder and major funder of the group, is considering a run himself.
02. 12. 2019

A new era on guns:' Gun-safety groups look to 2020 a year after Parkland

Nearly a year after a gunman massacred 17 students and staffers at a Parkland, Florida, high school, the political landscape on guns has shifted. Dozens of lawmakers endorsed by the gun-safety group Everytown for Gun Safety now hold seats in the US House -- many part of a freshman wave that helped Democrats seize control of the chamber in November's midterm elections. More than 20 states have passed some form of gun regulation in the last year, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. And a growing number of companies are risking customer backlash to link their brands to the gun-safety movement.
02. 11. 2019

Educators Endorse Safety Measures – Not Arming Teachers

The two national teachers union and a leading gun safety group called on federal and state lawmakers to pass a variety of gun laws to prevent future school shootings as part of a school safety report released Monday. The report, published by Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, comes just days before Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, marks one year since a mass shooting in which a former student killed 17 children and adults.
02. 08. 2019

House Democrat Lucy McBath, a mother of the gun control movement, says "Time is now on our side."

Everytown for Gun Safety, the PAC founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (a possible 2020 presidential candidate), endorsed 66 candidates in the 2018 midterms, and 66 percent of them won. For the first time in at least two decades, gun safety advocates outspent the gun lobby, by $2.4 million, according to Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a gun violence prevention advocacy group.
05. 07. 2019

Parkland shooting to be commemorated with new bill requiring background checks on gun sales

At the press conference Thursday, advocates for gun safety with the organizations Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action and Stand with Parkland made urgent, sometimes tearful pleas for a solution to gun violence. Deandra Dycus’ 13-year-old son, DeAndre, was struck by a stray bullet in 2014. He receives around-the-clock care in a rehabilitation facility because he lost his ability to walk or talk, leading to steep medical bills. “The financial cost of surviving gun violence is coupled with psychological impact of losing DeAndre,” she said.
02. 06. 2019

Democrat-controlled House makes gun safety top priority

Though the measure is likely to pass the House, it may face opposition in the Republican-majority Senate. “We are hopeful but … nothing’s guaranteed,” said Rachel Usdan, the leader of the D.C. chapter of Moms Demand Action. “Things are promising in the house but the Senate is another story.
02. 06. 2019

At the House's first hearing on gun violence in eight years, survivors and advocates filled the room

Local high school students showed up in force Wednesday morning for a hearing, at the House of Representatives, on gun violence. It was the first such hearing that the House has held in the past eight years, during which Republicans held the majority in the chamber. Youth in March for Our Lives T-shirts occupied the last three rows of seats for members of the public in the hearing room. In front of them were teens and adults wearing T-shirts from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and Everytown for Gun Safety—both groups that advocate for stronger laws as a way to prevent shooting deaths—and big pins that said "SURVIVOR.
02. 05. 2019

Rep. Lizzie Fletcher of Texas invited Rhonda Hart, an Army veteran and educator who joined the fight for gun reform after her oldest child, daughter Kim was killed in the deadly school shooting in Santa Fe, TX last year on May 18, 2018. "I met Rhonda last year when she became very involved with Moms Demand Action," Rep. Fletcher told Refinery29. "She has been an inspiration in terms of her resilience and her determination to make a difference.
02. 03. 2019

One deadly mass shooting after another in a violent January — and attacks barely registered nationally

Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, says it’s up to activists like herself to champion gun safety when the “media runs out of ways to cover these tragedies.” Starting on Jan. 26, Watts created a detailed Twitter thread outlining each instance of gun violence – not just mass shootings – for the final days of the month. The thread has generated thousands of retweets. “I think it’s so important to remember that the movement is growing,” she said, noting that in 2018 a total of 20 states enacted stronger gun safety laws – many of them signed by Republican governors.
01. 30. 2019

ABC News reported Wednesday that it had reviewed internal NRA emails showing that the organization was deeply involved with planning the trip to Moscow. One NRA employee even helped Butina arrange travel for the group, and Butina met the delegates at the airport carrying a sign that read “Welcome NRA.” During the trip, the members of the NRA met with officials from the Kremlin. Many of the people on the trip are today a part of the association’s top leadership. “Put simply, the NRA's half-baked explanation for its infamous 2015 Russia trip doesn't pass the smell test. It’s time for the NRA to dispense with the smoke and mirrors and tell the full truth about its ties to the Kremlin,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, told Newsweek.
01. 29. 2019

Legislature approves gun control package

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to approved each of the bills. “It does put New York at the forefront of keeping our citizens safe,” said Sarah Dumrese of the advocacy group Moms Demand Action. “States are just starting to pass red flag laws within the last few years, so we would be in the first wave of that. Six years ago, with the SAFE Act, we really did a good job setting the standard for background checks. “These are things we’re looking to take to the federal government, with New York as an example, of how we can reduce gun violence, respect the Second Amendment, but also keep our communities safe.
01. 24. 2019

CDC: School homicide rate up dramatically

Since the Parkland shooting, the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety has tallied 36 gun attacks resulting in injury or death at elementary, middle and high schools and college campuses across the country. Most school-related killings involved a single victim, CDC researchers found, and those patterns were generally stable over time. Youths living in urban areas, boys, non-whites and older teenagers were more likely to be victims, and about 6 in 10 single-victim homicides in or around schools involved a gun.
01. 24. 2019

Gun sales drop in the US, but why?

John Feinblatt is president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that supports limits on the gun industry. He agrees that the decline in gun sales is because Obama is no longer president, and he is not a threat to those who want more freedom around guns.
01. 22. 2019

You can’t be an absolutist’: Weighing a 2020 run, Bloomberg talks compromise

On Tuesday, he came to Annapolis with John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization that advocates for gun control legislation. Bloomberg praised Maryland’s gun laws, including a “red flag” law approved by legislators last year that allows a relative, spouse, legal guardian or roommate to seek a court order to keep a person who is considered dangerous from possessing a gun.
01. 22. 2019

Political shifts, sales slump cast shadow over gun industry

Gun-control advocates are rejoicing in the gun industry’s misfortunes of late and chalking it up to not just shifting attitudes among Americans but a shift in elected political leaders. “Without a fake menace in the White House to gin up fears, gun sales have been in a Trump slump and, as a result, the NRA is on the rocks,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Joe Bartozzi, the new president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said the industry isn’t disturbed by the drop in gun sales or the shift in federal politics.
01. 22. 2019

Mueller looks into Trump campaign ties to National Rifle Association as part of Russia probe

Everytown for Gun Safety, a pro-gun control organization and NRA foe, welcomed Mueller’s interest in the Trump connection. “Between the Mueller investigation and Maria Butina pleading guilty to conspiracy after using the NRA to advance the Kremlin’s agenda, we may finally start getting answers,” said John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown.
01. 22. 2019

On Tuesday, he came to Annapolis with John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization that advocates for gun control legislation. Bloomberg praised Maryland’s gun laws, including a “red flag” law approved by legislators last year that allows a relative, spouse, legal guardian or roommate to seek a court order to keep a person who is considered dangerous from possessing a gun.
01. 22. 2019

Mueller looks into Trump campaign ties to National Rifle Association as part of Russia probe

Everytown for Gun Safety, a pro-gun control organization and NRA foe, welcomed Mueller’s interest in the Trump connection. “Between the Mueller investigation and Maria Butina pleading guilty to conspiracy after using the NRA to advance the Kremlin’s agenda, we may finally start getting answers,” said John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown.
01. 22. 2019

Political shifts, sales slump cast shadow over gun industry

Gun-control advocates are rejoicing in the gun industry’s misfortunes of late and chalking it up to not just shifting attitudes among Americans but a shift in elected political leaders. “Without a fake menace in the White House to gin up fears, gun sales have been in a Trump slump and, as a result, the NRA is on the rocks,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Joe Bartozzi, the new president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said the industry isn’t disturbed by the drop in gun sales or the shift in federal politics.
01. 08. 2019

House Dems make gun control action an early priority

Some newly elected Democrats in competitive districts even actively ran on gun control, like Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.), who became an activist after losing her son to gun violence. McBath won a suburban Atlanta district President Trump narrowly carried in 2016. "This bill is further proof that gun safety is no longer the third rail of American politics,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety.
01. 08. 2019

Democratic drive for gun control reflects rapidly changing political dynamic

Along with her husband, Mark Kelly, she helps run an organization to combat gun violence. An affiliated super PAC joined forces with other anti-gun groups, such as Everytown for Gun Safety, largely funded by Michael Bloomberg, and largely outspent the NRA and other gun rights groups during the past election cycle. They provided a political shield for Democrats who wanted to aggressively push measures such as background-check legislation and a ban on semiautomatic weapons.
01. 08. 2019

Pressley and other Democrats hope to also put forth measures that have advanced in individual states to limit domestic abusers the ability to purchase firearms, advance "red flag" proposals allowing courts to disarm potentially dangerous gun owners and fund Center for Disease Control and Prevention research on gun violence. "If the midterms showed us anything, it's that gun safety is no longer the third rail of American politics," John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, told ABC News.
01. 08. 2019

Background checks bill: New Congress must fix old problem of guns falling into the wrong hands

The tragic absurdity of this system was driven home less than a week after the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, when Everytown for Gun Safety released video footage of a private investigator walking into a gun show and buying multiple firearms similar to those used by the Vegas shooter—all without a background check, and all completely legal. The solution is both simple and obvious: Expand our national background checks requirement to include all gun sales. This won’t completely solve the gun violence crisis—but it will keep more guns out of dangerous hands. In 2017, the current system denied more than 170,000 gun sales, 39 percent of them to convicted felons — so we know background checks work.
01. 04. 2019

At Jazmine Barnes rally, moms of murdered children speak out: ‘We want it to stop'

Another activist, Diana Earl, drove down from Austin for the rally. It’s been two years since her only son, then 22, was shot to death in Austin, and she’s now a part of gun-control advocacy group Moms Demand Action. “Shootings like this are a constant reminder that people shouldn’t be walking around with firearms, people with mental health issues or criminal convictions,” Earl said. “And every time it happens, it reopens the wound.
12. 28. 2018

US gun control advocates see hopeful signs in 2018

Shannon Watts, founder of "Moms Demand Action," pointed to the progress made in 2018, in an opinion piece in The Huffington Post titled "2018 Was The Year We Turned The Tide On Ending Gun Violence." Watts said the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which left 14 students and three staff members dead was the defining moment. "Millions of Americans took to the streets, marching for gun safety, following the lead of teens who would no longer allow lawmakers to turn a blind eye to gun violence," she said.
12. 27. 2018

2018 Was The Year We Turned The Tide On Ending Gun Violence

When gunfire went off at a high school in Parkland, Florida, last February, I thought to myself, “Not again.” In the five years since the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and the following day, when I founded Moms Demand Action, there had been so many mass tragedies. An AME church in Charleston, South Carolina. A nightclub in Orlando, Florida. A music festival in Las Vegas. Another church, this time in Sutherland Springs, Texas. And between all the mass shootings, there’s the daily gun violence that doesn’t make the national headlines. Every day, 100 Americans are shot and killed, and hundreds more are wounded.
12. 21. 2018

I'm part of the "mass shooting generation" — Here's how I'm fighting to end gun violence

After the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February, I went with my mom to a Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She had been a volunteer for a while, but before the Parkland shooting, I hadn’t considered my role in preventing gun violence. After it, I felt like I had to act and knew there must be more students like me could do to help end the gun violence crisis. As a junior in high school, I’d never been involved in any kind of activism, but I had to try. Turns out lots of other young people came to the meeting, too, and we all got together and decided to form our own Students Demand Action chapter. Since that day we’ve been hard at work registering and pre-registering voters, phone banking, canvassing, and participating in local events like the Miami Wear Orange event for National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
12. 18. 2018

Since Congress has failed to enact stronger gun laws, regular Americans have stepped up. Since 2012, Moms Demand Action has grown from a Facebook page into the nation’s largest grassroots gun violence prevention organization with more than five million supporters. Our volunteers have been hard at work, advocating for laws to keep our families safe from gun violence. In 2018 alone, 20 states passed meaningful gun safety laws, nine of them signed into law by Republican governors. It’s time that Democrats and Republicans reach across the aisle and work together to confront our nation’s gun violence crisis. Come January, we’ll be looking to the new Congress to pass meaningful laws — like background checks on all gun sales — and work together in a bipartisan way.
12. 14. 2018

Are the Suburbs Getting More Progressive on Guns? Moms Demand Action Bets Yes

Exit polling is still being parsed, but one thing is clear: In an election where women voters were crucial in swaying the balance of power, gun violence prevention was a priority issue for women from all walks of life,” the group’s founder, Shannon Watts, wrote about the midterm elections. “Gun violence isn’t a right-or-left issue — it’s a life-or-death issue.
12. 14. 2018

After Parkland, a New Surge in State Gun Control Laws

By the time the Parkland shooting happened, Moms Demand Action, the grass-roots arm of Everytown, had a chapter in every state and local groups in hundreds of communities. Nationally, the group’s volunteer numbers tripled in the months after the shooting, and those volunteers organized en masse in favor of gun restrictions and against permitless carry bills in Alabama, Oklahoma, Virginia and other states. All of the permitless carry bills were defeated. There was this structure we had built that could take in all of that anger and heartbreak and make it into action and put it into passing laws,” Taylor Maxwell, a spokeswoman for Everytown, said in September.
12. 13. 2018

Gun Violence Deaths In The U.S. Are At A 20-Year High, A New Report Shows

Everytown for Gun Safety also crunched the CDC's statistics and found that more people died from guns in 2017 than from vehicle accidents. Car crash deaths have been steadily sinking for years while gun violence numbers have been increasing. "Common-sense laws to make American cars, roads and drivers safer played a key role in the steady decline of auto deaths," Everytown's John Feinblatt said in a press release, "and common-sense laws are exactly what we need to make American communities safer from gun violence. "Come January, lawmakers should view our nation’s gun violence crisis for what it is: a public health crisis," added Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America in the release.
12. 13. 2018

Six years after Sandy Hook, sister of victim hopeful Colorado gun laws will be strengthened

At Mary’s funeral, I vowed to honor my sister with action. And just a month after the shooting, I became active in the gun violence prevention movement as a member of the Everytown Survivor Network and my local chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. I’ve spent every legislative session since 2013 down at the state Capitol, sharing my story and advocating for stronger gun laws. I’ve had gun rights extremists tell me my sister would be alive had she been armed. The idea we should arm teachers as a solution to gun violence is preposterous. My daughter isn’t going into teaching to be a sharpshooter. The mere thought prompted her to join me at the Capitol the past several years, testifying against dangerous bills that would allow guns in our schools.
12. 12. 2018

Gun control advocates won plenty of victories in 2018. What will 2020 bring?

It wasn't all good news for these groups, however, as candidates in favor of fewer restrictions on guns won key Senate and gubernatorial contests in purple and red states. And gun control groups are fully aware that the NRA could make a comeback in 2020. “The NRA lobbyists are like cockroaches. Just when you think you’ve gotten rid of all of them, you shine a flashlight and there they are,” said Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, the grassroots arm of Everytown for Gun Safety. “Several times demise of gun lobby has been predicted. We re-calibrate and shine a light on their dangerous agenda,” she added. The NRA didn’t respond to multiple interview requests for this story.
12. 12. 2018

Gun-control group claims victory at ballot box, in statehouses

In its annual year-in-review memo, Everytown said that 150 of the 196 candidates endorsed by its political arm, the Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, in the midterm elections won seats. They include places where gun control has not typically been a galvanizing issue, such as Kansas and Nevada, where Democrats Laura Kelly and Steve Sisolak were elected governors. Democrat Lucy McBath, whose son was killed in a dispute over loud music at a Florida gas station, won a seat in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District. “I think this was the year of gun safety and I think what’s so noteworthy is that Americans have now realized gun safety isn’t a right or left issue, but it’s a life or death issue,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown.
11. 28. 2018

After this election, the NRA is no longer calling all the shots

But real-life events and political surprises indicate that the landscape might be changing. And the work of groups such as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and other large and small organizations has made a difference. Where once politicians were loath to cross the NRA because of the organization’s hefty purse and powerful get-out-the-vote success, candidates in unlikely places are showing that a nuanced position is not a deal breaker. Earlier this month, Democrat Lucy McBath, a onetime spokesperson for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, won a House seat in Georgia that Newt Gingrich once held, no doubt surprising some leaders in her own party.
11. 28. 2018

We trusted this country': family of Pakistani teen killed in Texas shooting join lawsuit

Sabika’s family, who are represented by the gun policy reform group Everytown for Gun Safety, hopes the suit will force accountability on not just gun owners, but on people who ignore warning signs in their loved ones, even though they know of the risk they might pose to others. “We believe that the shooter’s parents had multiple opportunities to stop what had happened, and they did not engage in anything,” Albasit said. “The motivation behind this lawsuit is that any gun owner in the US must feel an obligation when it comes to their weapons, not just in storing them safely, but in speaking up when they believe that someone around them is at risk of harming themselves or people around them.
11. 20. 2018

Why TOMS is taking a stand to end gun violence

On November 12, Mycoskie announced his idea to Bain Capital, the private equity firm that’s owned a 50% stake in TOMS since 2014: TOMS would donate $5 million to nonprofits working to end gun violence (including Everytown for Gun Safety, Faith in Action, March for Our Lives, and Moms Demand Action), use its platform and social network to call on lawmakers to pass universal background checks, and permanently alter its giving model to prioritize issue-based efforts of this magnitude going forward. He was done avoiding politics. “If we have this much power as business leaders, we have to use it,” he says.
11. 19. 2018

One downward retail trend that’s not all Amazon’s fault

After her sophomore year of high school, Alanna Miller, now 18, spent her summer working at T.J. Maxx. But the Dallas-Fort Worth teen said her priorities shifted dramatically last winter when she was assigned to research the issue of universal background checks for firearms for her debate team. Miller has grown up in an era of mass shootings and has been undergoing routine lockdown drills since kindergarten. When Miller learned about the grassroots movement Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America as part of her debate research, she decided to join the group’s youth chapter, Students Demand Action, as a local leader.
11. 19. 2018

Gun safety was a winning issue in the midterm elections

This year, the gun violence prevention movement outspent the NRA. But we out-hustled them, too. Moms Demand Action volunteers worked with partners to register 100,000 new voters. And we had 1.2 million conversations with voters about gun sense candidates by going door to door and making phone calls. It’s because of that hard work that winning candidate after candidate has thanked Moms Demand Action volunteers during their acceptance speeches and in interviews. I’ve yet to see any photos this election cycle of NRA members canvassing or celebrating with winning candidates. And there’s a reason for that. This cycle, we went head-to-head with the NRA in 43 races (meaning we both endorsed candidates): gun safety candidates won 33 races, the NRA won nine races and 1 has yet to be called.
11. 16. 2018

Gun control groups eclipse N.R.A. in election spending

John Feinblatt, Everytown’s president, countered with a different interpretation: “There’s no question in our mind 2018 will be remembered as the year of gun safety and will be a reset moment.” Both the N.R.A. and Everytown said about 80 percent of the candidates they endorsed won. Elections, of course, are won at the margins — outside of the 80 percent. And it was swing districts that helped tilt the House back to the Democrats, often aided by gun-control groups.
11. 15. 2018

The NRA doesn’t seem so invincible anymore

Part of the shift is due to the NRA’s coming out as an exclusively Republican organization. Politically, the NRA now lives by the GOP, dies by the GOP. It has absolutely no protection in states with Democratic majorities or, starting in January, in the House, where Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has already promised to introduce gun-regulation proposals. The rest of the shift flows from a broader backlash against the nihilism that fuels both the NRA and Trumpism. Women have taken the lead in combating both. Shannon Watts, the force behind the gun-safety group Moms Demand Action, is one of the most successful political activists in the nation. Her group, which is supported by Bloomberg L.P. founder Mike Bloomberg, regularly checks the gun movement in even Republican state capitals.
11. 13. 2018

Gun control groups spent $2.4 million more than the NRA in midterm elections

Another group, Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun safety group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, saw 83% of the 66 candidates it endorsed in federal races win on election night, NPR reported. On the other hand, the NRA spent just $10 million this time around, a drastic cutback in previous election spending. In 2016, the gun rights group spent more than $55 million on federal elections, according to the Guardian.
11. 13. 2018

33 pro-gun control lawmakers who support common-sense gun reform in 2019”

The Democrats won the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives (that now includes more than 100 women), which means there will be a strong push for gun control legislation so Americans can freely go to a bar, a concert, a movie theater, a classroom, a place of worship, a yoga studio, etc. without the fear of being shot. Electing these gun control advocates—many who have experienced gun violence firsthand—was the first step. Now it's time to push them to introduce new legislation on both the state and federal level.
11. 13. 2018

A third rail no more: Incoming House Democrats embrace gun control

But in 2018, perhaps because of the the political activity around the Parkland, Fla., school shootings, many candidates campaigned openly on promises to strengthen gun laws. "This issue used to be considered the third rail of American politics, but no longer," said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. Undoubtedly, some Democrats still don't emphasize their stance on gun control, but the overall Democratic recalibration on gun policy wasn't limited to the stereotypical cities on the coasts.
11. 12. 2018

These Virginia congresswomen-elect made history. Just don’t call it a pink wave.

They say that they won on the strength of their ideas — health care, gun control — as well as their personal stories, and that their platforms will guide their votes. But still, each candidate’s race was bolstered by women’s activism. In her victory speech, Wexton — a state senator who defeated Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock — gave shout-outs to Network Nova and Moms Demand Action, local progressive groups driven largely by women. “The mobilization of women and women’s groups was huge in my race,” she said the day after her win.
11. 11. 2018

Gun control groups outspent NRA in midterm elections

Everytown for Gun Safety and Giffords, a gun control group founded by a Congresswoman injured in a mass shooting, together spent more than $11m to influence national races, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. The two groups spent millions to boost Lucy McBath in Georgia and Jason Crow in Colorado, gun control advocates who beat Republicans with A-ratings from the NRA. McBath, who has been a national spokeswoman for Everytown, lost her 17-year-old son Jordan Davis in 2012 when a white man shot and killed the unarmed teenager after an argument about loud music.
11. 09. 2018

After Massacre in California Bar, Will a Democrat-Controlled House Take Action on Gun Control?

The city of Thousands Oaks, California, is mourning after a former marine opened fire at a country music bar Wednesday night, killing 12 people, mostly students. It was the deadliest mass shooting in the United States since the Parkland, Florida, school shooting in February. Police have identified the gunman as 28-year-old Ian David Long, a Marine veteran who had deployed to Afghanistan and had a history of mental health issues, including possible PTSD. The dead include 27-year-old Telemachus Orfanos, who survived the deadly Las Vegas massacre at a country music festival last year, only to be gunned down Wednesday night. We speak with Sarah Dachos, a Navy veteran and volunteer with the D.C. chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and a founding member of the Everytown Veterans Advisory Council.
11. 09. 2018

America’s latest mass shooting came the day after the Democrats regained control of the House in the midterm election results and some that as a sign that the public wants “common sense” gun safety laws, said Shannon Watts, the founder of gun safety advocacy group Moms Demand Action. “The voting public sent a strong signal to political candidates in this country that not only is gun safety no longer a third-rail issue of politics, it’s also bringing people out to the polls,” she said.
11. 09. 2018

Democrats Plan to Pursue Most Aggressive Gun-Control Legislation in Decades

Ms. McBath, who became a spokeswoman for Everytown and a 2016 campaign surrogate for Hillary Clinton, relayed her story on the campaign trail and in her early television advertisements. But in the closing weeks before Election Day, Ms. McBath focused on health care and economic issues. Everytown’s closing TV ad backing Ms. McBath didn’t mention gun control, focusing instead on health care. “Voters absolutely understood where Lucy stood on the issue of gun safety,” said Everytown President John Feinblatt. “There was no question in voters’ minds about Lucy story, but there were other stories we needed to tell, too.
11. 09. 2018

Another madman with a gun: But in a new Congress, there’s room for hope

What's changing? Part of it is undoubtedly that the shooting in Parkland, Florida, and mass shootings in general, have made gun safety as pressing an issue on the left as gun rights have traditionally been on the right. Groups like Moms Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety spent a lot of money and recruited a huge number of volunteers to canvass for their endorsed candidates. That sort of elbow grease should never be underestimated when it comes to affecting electoral results.
11. 08. 2018

Democrats Vow Action On Gun Control After Thousand Oaks Shooting

Spending to support candidates backing tougher gun control surged this year, even as campaign spending by the NRA declined. Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, pledged $30 million for this year’s elections and continued to put new money into competitive races in the final days. A political action committee formed by Gabby Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman wounded in a shooting, spent nearly $5 million.
11. 08. 2018

Red Flag: California bar shooter should have had guns taken away, neighbor says

When you see something like this happen and find out it’s someone with a military history, all of a sudden that becomes the center of attention,” said Chris Marvin, a member of the Everytown for Gun Safety Veterans Advisory Council and a retired combat-wounded Army officer. “When we hear Marine Corps, people jump to PTSD, and they do it because they want to scapegoat — here’s something to blame,” he said. While Mr. Marvin and other specialists point out that the overwhelming majority of those suffering from PTSD do not commit violence, those close to Long seemed deeply concerned that he was on the verge of lashing out.
11. 08. 2018

Thoughts, prayers, and flags at half staff won’t stop the next angry gunman

Another day, another mass shooting, this time 12 people dead. It’s tempting to accept Wednesday night’s violence in Thousand Oaks, Calif., as just another day in blood-soaked America. But we shouldn’t. Not after the Tuesday election. Not after the Democrats flipped the House. Not after we witnessed the dwindling political influence of the National Rifle Association and the rise of politically savvy gun violence groups like Everytown for Gun Safety.
11. 08. 2018

Mother on a mission: Gun control advocate wins US House race

After her son’s slaying, McBath became active in gun control advocacy. John Feinblatt, who heads the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, said McBath first came to them as a volunteer and eventually joined the staff and headed faith outreach efforts. “We saw in Lucy a natural leader that people immediately started to look up to for her real devotion to honoring her son and ability to rally others,” he said.
11. 08. 2018

Gun safety advocates notch big wins in midterm elections

Still, to gun violence prevention advocates, Tuesday’s results served as a clear sign that the intensity gap on gun policy has closed, and that the longstanding NRA stranglehold on the issue has been broken. “Americans voting with gun violence in mind are voting for gun safety and against the NRA,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, an arm of Everytown, in a call with reporters on Tuesday.
11. 07. 2018

Where Gun Reform Candidates Made Gains Last Night

Gun violence prevention groups got a positive return on their investment in House races. In a first, Everytown for Gun Safety and Giffords outspent the National Rifle Association this year on federal contests. In four of the six House races the reform groups poured the most money into, their preferred candidates won. They may claim a fifth in Georgia’s 6th District, where Democrat Lucy McBath received $4.1 million from gun reform groups in a race that’s too close to call, though McBath is leading by 0.9 percent. McBath became a gun violence prevention activist following the death of her son, Jordan Davis, in a 2012 “stand your ground” shooting in Florida, and the district has been in the national spotlight ever since Jon Ossoff raised a boatload of money in a losing special election bid early in the Trump era.
11. 07. 2018

McBath joined the movement against gun violence after her 17-year-old son Jordan was gunned down in 2012 by a white man for playing loud music in his car. She is a national spokesperson for Everytown and Moms Demand Action, and founded an education organization called Champions in the Making Legacy Foundation. McBath wants to expand Medicaid in Georgia and has been critical of Republican tax cuts for corporations and the rich.
11. 06. 2018

Democrat Jennifer Wexton Bests Incumbent Barbara Comstock In Virginia

Comstock’s reputation as a strong gun rights advocate had also made her a key target of the gun reform movement, with advocacy groups pouring nearly $1 million into the race, according to tracking by The Trace, an outlet funded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety organization. The National Rifle Association meanwhile endorsed Comstock once again, having supported her in previous cycles. Although the NRA touted her “A” rating, it spent just over $12,000 in the election.
11. 06. 2018

Gun control laws 2018: Midterm elections measures and how how vote could impact legislation

Democrats have become noticeably more willing to embrace gun control on the campaign trail, particularly after a shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, earlier this year that led to a wave of protests and backlash against the NRA. “So many candidates for Congress, particularly women, are running on this issue—not just making it part of their platform and not just supporting it, but actually running on it,” Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, an arm of Everytown for Gun Safety, told The New York Times on Sunday.
11. 05. 2018

After gun violence, here's how to actually help

Even those who aren’t directly impacted by the violence often report symptoms of depression and grief, including sorrow, trouble sleeping and a lack of concentration following a mass shooting, according to the American Psychological Association. Recognizing and embracing those emotions is key to not becoming disillusioned and jaded. “It is so important to not just gloss over when a tragedy happens,” says Shannon Watts, a leading gun control advocate and founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. “[We need] to think about it, to process it and to grieve that it is happening in our country.
11. 04. 2018

Democratic candidates are running against the NRA in previously gun-friendly districts — and they’re winning

According to Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, “So many candidates for Congress, particularly women, are running on this issue — not just making it part of their platform and not just supporting it, but actually running on it.” One of them is Amber Gustafson, a gun owner and a former Republican, running for majority leader of the Iowa Senate as a Democrat.
11. 04. 2018

Shannon Watts, Founder of Moms Demand Action: “I’m voting for the candidates who have received the Moms Demand Action Gun Sense Candidate distinction. And for the first time, I’ll be filling out my ballot beside my son, Sam, who turned 18 in September. As Sam prepares to leave home and attend college (in a state that doesn't allow guns on campuses), my top priority is to support candidates who will make gun violence prevention a priority so that ALL of our kids safer.
11. 04. 2018

Bearing F’s From the N.R.A., some Democrats are campaigning openly on guns

At the same time, 61 percent of Americans want stricter gun laws, according to Gallup; that includes some gun owners. Support for universal background checks and red-flag laws is substantially higher. And this is emboldening some Democrats. “So many candidates for Congress, particularly women, are running on this issue — not just making it part of their platform and not just supporting it, but actually running on it,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, the grass-roots arm of Everytown for Gun Safety. Everytown, which is largely funded by Michael Bloomberg, has endorsed 196 candidates this year in 36 states, and more than 40 volunteers for Moms Demand Action are running for office.
11. 03. 2018

Anguished by ‘spiral of hate,’ Charleston Pastor and Pittsburgh Rabbi grieve as one

For family members of the so-called Emanuel Nine and others in Charleston, the Tree of Life shootings carried their own form of post-traumatic stress. Sharon Risher, who lost her mother, Ethel Lance, in the Charleston attack, said she could not stop crying when she heard the news on CNN. “It was like somebody had just stabbed me in my heart again,” she said.
11. 03. 2018

For the past few years, Everytown had focused on changing laws in states where it saw a chance to make inroads, including Nevada and Washington. It is now trying to replicate that with congressional and statewide races. “The momentum is with us, the NRA is on its heels, and we think that it’s an opportunity to keep redrawing the map,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown.
11. 03. 2018

The year of the woman’s activism: Marches, phone banks, postcards, more

Moms Demand Action, an anti-gun-violence group that now counts five million supporters, said it had registered more than 100,000 voters and reached more than 200,000 through canvassing. “I think that women want to take out their frustration and their feeling of powerlessness,” said Shannon Watts, the group’s founder. “We’re only 20 percent of legislators. The power that we have is to use our votes and our voices, and I see women wanting to plug in and get involved.
11. 02. 2018

Meet PEOPLE's 25 women changing the world of 2018

We need to put people over profits,” says Shenee Johnson, 45, whose son Kedrick was shot in the chest at a 2010 party, just weeks before he graduated high school. “We’re asking for common-sense laws.” That’s the message that Shannon Watts, who founded the nonpartisan Moms Demand at her kitchen table after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, works to promote after every devastating shooting.
11. 02. 2018

Democrats in red states aren’t ignoring gun control anymore. They’re embracing it

One notable beneficiary of those funds is Lucy McBath, who’s running in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District against Rep. Karen Handel, who won the seat in a special election last year. McBath, whose teenage son was shot and killed at a gas station in 2012, has made guns a central issue of her platform. By campaigning as a grieving mother, McBath has sought to connect with voters in a district that hasn’t elected a Democrat since 1979. She’s received more than $1 million from Everytown, and like Pureval, that doesn’t seem to be damaging her chances too badly. A recent FiveThirtyEight poll analysis showed McBath lagging Handel by only a few points.
11. 02. 2018

“A ballet about bullets: Watch the latest moving gun control ad

Everytown is promoting it online, alongside a host of recent ads aimed at rallying support among young people, people of color, and female voters ahead of midterms. “We have seen that gun safety is a salient issue with voters,” says Brynne Craig, the group’s political director in an email to Fast Company. “We know that voters will go to the polls with gun safety top of mind on November 6.
11. 02. 2018

Powerful video points to Nov. 6 elections to curb gun violence: 'This has gone on way too long

A powerful new video, released Thursday night, encourages people to vote in Tuesday’s midterm elections for candidates who are committed to ending America’s epidemic of gun violence. The video — released by Everytown for Gun Safety, a non-profit group dedicated to gun violence prevention, in partnership with the media company ATTN: — features three people from different walks of life who have been impacted by gun violence.
11. 02. 2018

Every single day, 96 Americans are killed by guns.

11. 01. 2018

I grew up Jewish in Pittsburgh. Here’s how I am taking action after the deadly synagogue shooting.

I am grateful to my parents for moving our family to Squirrel Hill in 1988. I cannot imagine growing up anywhere else. To have this special neighborhood — my neighborhood — thrust into the national spotlight in such a horrific way is like a cruel nightmare. This summer, I took over as volunteer leader of the Washington, D.C., chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, the largest gun violence prevention organization in the country. As a part of the gun safety community, I’ve sadly come to realize that gun violence is a public health crisis. Gun violence encompasses more than mass shootings, it is also domestic violence, unintentional shootings by children, firearm suicide and police shootings.
11. 01. 2018

Pissed off hunters are ready for real gun control despite the NRA

McCaulou herself belongs to Gun Owners for Responsible Ownership, a group advocating for reforms such as universal background checks and safe storage, and she knows hunters who’ve joined Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, more traditional gun-control advocacy groups. The biggest risk of staying silent, she added, “is nothing changes.” More than 36,000 people were killed by guns in America in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about two-thirds of which were suicides.
11. 01. 2018

I survived an anti-Semitic shooting. I know how hate armed with a gun turns deadly.

From 2006 through 2015, an average of more than 10,300 hate crimes a year in America involved a firearm on the scene, according to Everytown for Gun Safety's analysis of Bureau of Justice Statistics data. That's more than 28 each day. According to 2016 FBI data on hate crimes, 21 percent are attacks motivated by bias against a religion, most often anti-Semitism or anti-Islamic prejudice. In the words of Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who wrote recently about gun violence and other issues that too quickly get passed over by the news cycle, “We deserve better.” We deserve better gun laws. We deserve to live free from the fear of being shot in our places of worship and common community. And we deserve better leaders who will stand up for the safety of our communities.
10. 31. 2018

How NRA spending shows the shifting midterms landscape

The drop in the NRA's political spending is a rare shift, one that hasn't occurred in 20 years, according to data from the Federal Election Commission: The NRA spent $11 million for midterm races this year, nearly half of what gun-control groups spent, per the same data. Meanwhile Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has pledged to dedicate $30 million to the 2018 midterms. After the Pittsburgh shooting, Everytown bought an additional $700,000 in advertisements targeting Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.).
10. 31. 2018

How grieving mother Shenee Johnson turned anguish over her son’s gun death into action

Reeling from her grief, Johnson — who is among PEOPLE’s 25 Women Changing the World — began to get involved with gun violence prevention in her Queens, N.Y. community. “I started meeting other mothers like me, and their stories sounded the same: 17, 16-year-old young people being murdered. And I knew then that I would dedicate my life to preventing gun violence.” Her activism led her to Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, the group founded by Shannon Watts in the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
10. 31. 2018

How Julianne Moore and her 16-year-old daughter Liv are teaming up to end gun violence

Across the country in Colorado, another mom, Shannon Watts felt the same way — and was moved to found the nonpartisan group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, which soon drew Moore’s support. “Shannon always says, ‘If we lose our children, we have nothing left to lose.’ Women have been so incredibly instrumental in this movement because you’re like, ‘You’re threatening my family. You’re threatening my children. And you have a government that seems incapable of doing anything about it — even common-sense gun safety measures.
10. 31. 2018

Moms Demand Action Founder Shannon Watts on finding ‘a tribe of women who will hold you up

There are 80 million moms in America — and together, they have the power to end gun violence in this country. That’s the message behind Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, the group founded by Shannon Watts in the wake of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. “I absolutely believe that women and moms in this country are the secret sauce to social activism and advocacy,” Watts, 47, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue.
10. 31. 2018

Rare drop in NRA election spending as gun-limit groups rise

The NRA has put $11 million into midterm races this year — less than half what it spent four years ago in a campaign that gave Republicans full control of Congress. This year's totals are also far below the $54 million the group spent in 2016 on both the presidential and congressional races. The shift comes as spending to support tougher gun control measures has surged. Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, pledged $30 million for this year's election, and has continued to put new money into competitive races in the final days. A political action committee formed by Gabby Giffords, the former congresswoman wounded in a shooting, is spending nearly $5 million.
10. 29. 2018

How the NRA stokes conspiratorial anti-semitism

This sort of thinly and not-so-thinly veiled anti-Semitism has become a key part of the NRA’s playbook, said Andrew Zucker, federal media relations director at Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit largely funded by Bloomberg, the former Republican mayor of New York City. ″[The NRA’s] leaders peddle conspiracy theories, fuel hatred and traffic in dog-whistle politics in order to incite fear and sell more guns,” Zucker said in a statement to HuffPost. “The NRA’s rhetoric has reached a dangerous new low, and Americans have had enough.
10. 29. 2018

Is gun control part of the 2018 midterm elections? Here's what you should know

Elite Daily spoke with Matt McTighe, Chief Operating Officer of Everytown for Gun Safety, about the Washington measure and the role gun control will have on next week's elections around the country. It does speak to a nationwide willingness to take action on gun safety where the federal government has failed to act," McTighe says of the Washington initiative. "What's most encouraging is that it is being done in a bipartisan way — it's not just blue states, Democrats, liberals." Some 14 of those states that enacted gun control laws in the last year did so under Republican leadership.
10. 28. 2018

Emanuel AME Reverend to Pittsburgh Synagogue: Together, we will rise up

My mother, Mrs. Ethel Lance; my cousins, Tywanza Sanders and Susie Jackson; and my childhood friend Myra Thompson were killed along with five others, including Reverend Clementa Pinckney. My entire life changed in a second. How does one comprehend such devastation? I’m a trauma chaplain, yet all of my training went out the window. I couldn’t believe this could happen to my mother, to all the others. Growing up, I witnessed and heard of so many racially motivated hate crimes. But never in my life did I think the country would return to such unspeakable acts of violence and intolerance. The AME church shooting would surely be a wake-up call to our nation. But here we are, three years later, and deadly hate crimes continue to be a scourge upon our nation.
10. 27. 2018

“As US midterms approach, moms hit the trail to preach gun control

Like thousands of other moms, who wear red shirts for their cause, the 56-year-old Giammittorio is hoping for change at the ballot box. She is campaigning for Jennifer Wexton, a Democrat running for a seat in the House of Representatives against Republican incumbent Barbara Comstock, who has an "A" rating from the NRA for her voting record. "Jennifer Wexton would definitely help change the balance in the House," said Giammittorio, who is unabashed about her work for Moms Demand Action, which is backing 3,000 "gun sense candidates" on the federal, state and local levels.
10. 28. 2018

How to stop hate from fueling the next mass shooting

As news broke that eleven people had been shot dead during Sabbath services at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday morning, I called Shannon Watts, the founder of the national grassroots gun violence prevention organization Moms Demand Action, who has been a leading voice on gun reform since the 2012 elementary school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. I asked Watts what she had to say about yet another mass shooting—an exercise that’s become somewhat routine.
10. 28. 2018

Pittsburgh mayor to Trump: Armed guards are not the answer

Instead, Peduto told NBC's "Meet the Press," he believes that gun-control measures would go further to help stop these shootings. "I belong to an organization, a bipartisan organization, called Mayors Against Illegal Guns," Peduto said. "I don't think that the answer to this problem is solved by having our synagogues, mosques and churches filled with armed guards or schools filled with armed guards." He added: "We should try to stop irrational behavior from happening at the forefront. And not try to create laws around irrational behavior to continue.
10. 26. 2018

U.S. gun-control groups outspending pro-gun forces on election

Gun-control groups, including Giffords and Everytown for Gun Safety, have spent $20.2 million on the elections, well over the $14.1 million spent by pro-gun groups led by the NRA, according to data released on Friday by the U.S. Federal Election Commission. So far, it marks the first time in at least two decades that gun-control groups have outspent gun-rights groups on federal races, though gun-control groups have outspent gun-rights advocates in state elections in recent years, according to data compiled by the National Institute on Money in Politics.
10. 25. 2018

Everytown for Gun Safety releases celeb-filled PSA: 'Make a plan' for Election Day

Lin-Manuel Miranda, Kevin Bacon, Michael J. Fox and Julianne Moore are just some of the stars encouraging voters to “make a plan” for their trips to the ballot box so they can vote for “candidates who will actually do something about our country’s gun violence crisis” in next month's midterm elections. “What’s your plan for voting? How you gonna get there?” Bacon asks in the video released Thursday by the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, which was founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
10. 25. 2018

While a gun was not involved in my aunt's murder, more than half of women who die by gun violence in America are killed by intimate partners or family members. I used to blame myself for not doing enough, but now, I am determined to tell my aunt's story because sharing it could help inspire the change we need to save lives. There's no one law that can stop every act of violence. But there are common sense steps we can take, like keeping guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, that can make a difference. It's with that in mind that I helped to found a chapter of Students Demand Action For Gun Sense in America on my college campus. The fact is that gun violence is preventable. Strong gun laws and a culture of responsible gun ownership can save lives, but we need lawmakers who will work with us to enact change.
10. 25. 2018

Guns in America

To tell this uniquely American story, TIME partnered with JR, the artist and photographer known in part for his murals around the world that portray communities in all their complexity. In three U.S. cities profoundly affected by guns—Dallas, St. Louis and Washington, D.C.—we invited people to share their views and describe their experiences in a search for common ground.
10. 23. 2018

They survived mass shootings. Now they are living with bullets inside them.

On an otherwise ordinary winter morning nearly eight years ago, Mary Reed was standing in a long line with her teenage daughter outside a Tucson supermarket to meet Representative Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, when a gunman approached the crowd and opened fire. Ms. Reed shielded her daughter with her own body, moments before a 9 mm bullet tore through her, hit a rib and darted toward her spine. Ms. Reed was among 19 people shot, six fatally, on that day in January 2011, in that year’s worst mass shooting. As a survivor, she joined about 100,000 others who are wounded by gunfire every year. And with two bullets still lodged in her back, she’s also a member of a distinct group of Americans: those who live with the metal inside them.
10. 22. 2018

With just two weeks to go before the crucial midterm elections, Everytown for Gun Safety released a powerful PSA on Monday morning (Oct. 22) featuring teenagers dancing away the fear of being cut down by gunfire at school to the soundtrack of Sia's new anthem "I'm Still Here." The four-minute clip opens with a grade schooler approaching a voter registration sign-up table and grabbing an orange balloon, which pops in his hands, setting off a wave of panic among the other students keenly attuned to the sound of gunfire.
10. 18. 2018

Mayors score a victory in court battle over the NRA-backed state law which blocks local firearm regulations

The state of Florida, along with Florida’s agriculture commissioner, attorney general and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner remain as defendants in the case. The governor is not named in the lawsuit. The state had sought to get the suit dismissed but lost in court Thursday. “The cities and public servants we represent are pleased the court rejected the state’s attempt to prevent this case from proceeding,” said Eric Tirschwell, litigation director for Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control group that is representing the local governments in the lawsuit. “We look forward to showing why it is unconstitutional and illegal to threaten elected officials and their cities with severe penalties for taking action to protect public safety.
10. 18. 2018

How to talk about gun safety with other parents

In 2016 while visiting family, 14-year-old JaJuan McDowell was fatally shot by a teen playing with an unsecured gun. His mother, Julvonnia McDowell, now volunteers with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, which is affiliated with Everytown for Gun Safety, to educate kids about firearms and encourage moms and dads to talk about guns with other families. She often shares Everytown’s program called Be SMART, an acronym that stands for: Secure guns in homes and vehicles. Model responsible behavior. Ask about unsecured guns in other homes. Recognize the risks of teen suicide. Tell your peers to be SMART.
10. 19. 2018

Bloomberg’s gun safety group to spend another $1.8 million on Nikki Fried, Sean Shaw

Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control group co-founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said Thursday that in addition to throwing $2 million behind Democratic candidates seeking Florida Cabinet positions, it will be dedicating $1.8 million solely to agriculture commissioner nominee Nikki Fried and attorney general hopeful Sean Shaw.
10. 18. 2018

These are the women candidates who may flip the House in the midterms

Georgia’s 6th District has been Republican-controlled since 1979, but Democratic candidate Lucy McBath may be the first challenger with the momentum to flip it. Deciding to run for office after her son was shot and killed, she’s now a nationally-recognizable community organizer and gun reform advocate. She founded an education organization called Champions in the Making Legacy Foundation and even testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee as a national spokesperson for Everytown and Moms Demand Action.
10. 17. 2018

Activism fatigue is real and here's how you can fight against it

Today’s younger generations shouldn’t feel singled out. “If you look back through history, so many major movements in our country — the Civil Rights Movement, the Antiwar Movement — have been led by students,” says Taylor King, a student leader at Students Demand Action, the student-led arm of Everytown for Gun Safety. “Young people historically have a role to play in major changes.
10. 16. 2018

How one mom has taken gun safety into her own hands

Moms Demand Action has successfully advocated for bills that prohibit private gun sales without background checks in eight states, and bills that disarm domestic abusers in 25 states (at press time). “Every country is home to toxic masculinity. But only America makes it really easy to access an arsenal and ammunition,” Watts says. “And that is why this country has such a gun violence crisis.” Watts, 47, is now focused on the midterm elections, and is working to garner votes for pro-gun safety candidates. “Americans are fed up with offers of thoughts and prayers from lawmakers without taking action,” she says. “These are acts of cowardice by people we’ve elected to protect us.
10. 12. 2018

Too many latina women are caught in the deadly intersections of gun violence and domestic violence

October marks the beginning of Domestic Violence Awareness Month and the end of Hispanic Heritage Month, and this year it comes in advance of the most important elections of our lifetimes. As one of the largest and most important voting blocs in America, Latinas must be prepared to send a strong message to lawmakers who continue to prioritize the racist and misogynistic agenda of the NRA’s extreme leadership over their lives and the lives of their friends and family members. Our strength is in our numbers, our collective voice and our shared history of resilience. We must remember that in November. We owe it to the four women killed in Laredo, the clubgoers who died at Pulse and the thousands of other Latinx victims whose stories don’t appear on the front page of newspapers or cable news television to fight for the future of our communities at the ballot box.
10. 12. 2018

Kesha on common sense gun laws and partnering with March for Our Lives to end gun violence

The intense desire to change the normalcy of the American gun violence culture is why I wanted to come together with the Parkland students behind the advocacy group March for Our Lives, as well as the artists Chika and my younger brother Sage. Together, we’re asking Americans to vote for candidates who support common sense gun laws in this November’s midterm elections, so that we can finally end senseless gun violence. (You can easily find the politicians in your state who stand for common sense gun laws on the Gun Sense Voter website, which is supported by Everytown and Moms Demand Action.)
10. 11. 2018

New NRA 'Fx' rating for Florida candidates endorsed by Everytown For Gun Safety

Opponents of the NRA see the new rating as a victory and indication that the push for tighter gun laws is gaining momentum. John Feinblett, president of Everytown For Gun Safety, is among those who see the rating as a positive sign. “If there was ever any doubt that Everytown was the counterweight to the NRA, I think this proves it once and for all,” he told the Daily News. Everytown, founded in 2014, has endorsed more than 100 state and federal candidates in the 2018 midterm elections.
10. 12. 2018

National gun control group pouring $500,000 into Gov. Tom Wolf's campaign

John Feinblatt, the nonprofit’s president, said in a statement that Pennsylvanians "deserve leaders with the courage to buck the [National Rifle Association] and champion common-sense gun laws." Mr. Wagner was recently endorsed by the NRA, whose political strategist labeled him a staunch supporter of the second amendment who will "fight to protect our fundamental right to self-defense." Everytown for Gun Safety, founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has lobbied successfully for gun safety measures in many state legislatures with help from its grassroots arm, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.
10. 10. 2018

NRA debuts new rating for Florida candidates backed by gun control group

The new NRA grade, Fx, targets candidates who have been endorsed by Everytown for Gun Safety and its affiliate Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, advocacy groups supported by Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City. The Fx rating is only being applied to candidates in Florida, according to Jennifer Baker, a spokeswoman for the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action. The rating marks a candidate “who requested and received the endorsement of Bloomberg’s anti-gun groups”, according to the NRA’s web site.
10. 10. 2018

National gun control group wades into race for control of Colorado Senate

That’s where Everytown for Gun Safety’s money could play a crucial role. The group’s spokesman, Andrew Zucker, declined to say how the group plans to divide the $650,000, but he did tell The Denver Post that they’re hopeful a Democratic Senate would push through reforms like a red-flag bill. Everytown for Gun Safety has endorsed Democrat Tom Sullivan, whose son was killed during the 2012 Aurora movie theater shooting, for state House District 37. At the congressional level, the group has gotten behind Democrat Jason Crow, who is running to unseat U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora.
10. 10. 2018

Waterloo for the NRA? Its donations to GOP candidates plunge 90 percent

While the NRA is pulling back, gun control advocacy groups are stepping up their spending this cycle. Former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords' PAC has spent $3.6 million this year and Everytown for Gun Safety, founded by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, has added another $1.5 million.
10. 09. 2018

Gun control group investing millions in the 2018 election endorses a Miami Republican

A national gun control group co-founded by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is endorsing Miami Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo in the nation’s most expensive House race. Everytown for Gun Safety announced Tuesday that Curbelo was one out of 10 Florida lawmakers running for statewide or federal office who received an endorsement, and the only Republican on the list. Curbelo faces Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in the November general election for a Miami-to-Key West seat that has seen more TV spending from both sides than any other House race in the country.
10. 06. 2018

Gun sense at the ballot box

There are nearly 80 million moms in America, and many of us have banded together to demand change from politicians who have allowed the NRA’s guns everywhere agenda to endanger our communities. And what we’ve learned is that when we can’t change the hearts and minds of elected leaders, we have to change our elected leaders. And that’s why so many gun violence survivors and Moms Demand Action volunteers are running for elected office — from school boards to city councils to Congress.
10. 06. 2018

The mothers are coming and they will change the world

The next time you’re tempted to take control and expect others to fall in line, consider the leadership model of two successful social action groups: Mothers Out Front and Moms Demand Action. These two different organizations mobilize mothers at the heart of their missions. They rely on mothers’ strong social capital and community ties to build their ranks. And though they have strong social media and digital presence, they encourage passionate supporters to bring in new members via in personal and social media contact. Most important, action is driven via chapter leaders and motivations in particular regions or cities.
10. 04. 2018

Angry women are taken more seriously when they’re moms

But the anger of mothers has proven powerful on the political stage lately, too. One of the most influential lobbying groups pushing for gun control is Moms Demand Action, whose self-described mission is to enact “common-sense solutions [that] can help decrease the escalating epidemic of gun violence that kills too many of our children and loved ones every day,” and whose membership numbers grew from 70,000 to more than 200,000 after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in February. And in recent weeks, conservative women have invoked their roles as mothers of sons to defend Brett Kavanaugh as he faces allegations of sexual assault; it is on behalf of their sons, the NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch and others have said, that they believe men should be considered innocent of alleged sexual misconduct unless proven guilty.
10. 03. 2018

Pennsylvania to toughen gun laws in domestic violence cases

The bill picked up speed in March, when the Senate negotiated changes that moved the National Rifle Association to drop its opposition to it. The Senate promptly passed it, unanimously, but changes in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives triggered a new fight with some gun-rights advocates before the chamber approved it last week over their protests, 131-62. “It took a long time, it was a slow process,” said Deb Marteslo of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. “It’s a mind shift here in the Capitol, but it happened and we’re deeply grateful. The winners here are the victims of abuse.
10. 03. 2018

Moms Demand Action get some action in the Keystone state!

Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand and who should have her own action figure, detailed the tremendous effort the "gun sense" organization put into this: They hosted five press conferences in September with both Republican and Democrat state legislators, local law enforcement, and an engaged public. They held a "Protect Pennsylvania Families" rally, published a video with volunteers that highlighted all the reasons state residents supported the bill. Perhaps the kicker was the list of "78 Reasons We Can't Wait" featuring 78 testimonials – one for each of the Pennsylvanians who died from domestic gun violence just in 2017.
10. 02. 2018

NRA’s spending is way down in the 2018 midterms. Does it have ‘a popularity problem?

The NRA has spent less than half the $3.6 million laid out this year by the gun safety political action committee Giffords PAC, created by former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in 2011 at a constituent meeting in a Tucson suburb. Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has spent just under $1.5 million so far, nearly matching the NRA.
10. 01. 2018

A year after the Las Vegas Shooting, gun control advocates are getting out the vote in Nevada

This week’s campaign initiatives don’t mark the gun control groups’ first foray into Nevada’s races. Everytown has already spent $3.5 million to support Democratic gubernatorial candidate Sisolak, who had spearheaded the fundraising effort for Las Vegas victims. (The group has not yet announced its plans for key Senate races.) Giffords endorsed Rosen, who represents part of Las Vegas, and gave $5,000 to her campaign back in May. Rosen had been a vocal proponent for banning bump stocks, an appliance used in the shooting that turns firearms into semiautomatic weapons.
10. 01. 2018

One year later, Vegas shooting survivor sees progress on guns

Robert Gaafar is one of the survivors of the Las Vegas shooting a year ago, and he is now partnering with Everytown to help launch a new election initiative. Gaafar said the progress on gun control in state and local races is heartening, even if the federal government remains unable or unwilling to do anything.
10. 01. 2018

On The Las Vegas shooting anniversary, why this teen is thinking about activism

On March 14, I joined my classmates for a school walkout protesting our lawmakers’ lack of action on gun safety issues. Soon afterwards, I took another step when my peers and I channeled our passion and anger into starting a Students Demand Action group at my high school. Students Demand Action is how young people are making our voices heard in the fight for stronger gun laws, demanding common sense solutions like requiring a background check on every gun sale and disarming domestic abusers. We work to register our fellow students to vote, educate our school on gun safety, and do everything we can to elect gun sense candidates. We are fighting for our generation to be represented at the polls, and aim to inspire adults to take action as well.
09. 30. 2018

My sister was shot in Las Vegas: Vote as if your life depends on it

In the year since the shooting, I’ve become an active participant in the gun violence prevention movement as a member of the Everytown Survivor Network and a volunteer with my local chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. I’ve learned that like me, millions of other Americans have had their “enough” moment, and have gotten off the sidelines to demand change. And, it’s working.
09. 28. 2018

The senator from Sandy Hook wants to make gun control a winning issue for Democrats

On Valentine’s Day in 2013, Shannon Watts, a mother of five who on the day after Sandy Hook founded Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, brought her budding army to Capitol Hill to lobby for the Manchin-Toomey bill. (When they got to Murphy’s office, his staff gave them handmade valentines.) Meanwhile, Murphy and his Connecticut colleagues worked with the Sandy Hook families to gather support for the legislation. But after a last-minute NRA lobbying effort killed the bill, the nascent partnership lost its footing. The new national groups turned their attention to state legislatures, where they hoped gun control might be an easier sell. “Congress would be the finale, not the curtain raiser,” says John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, the organization backed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
09. 25. 2018

Everytown for Gun Safety is spending $5 million on ads to flip 15 GOP House seats

It’s not just former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg who’s throwing his support behind Democrats this election cycle. Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun control advocacy organization founded by Bloomberg, is investing $5 million in a digital ad campaign targeting 15 “Red to Blue” House races. Part of its “Not One More” campaign, the initiative will target House districts in suburban communities outside of cities like Atlanta, Kansas City, Miami, and Minneapolis, reports Politico. In eight of the targeted districts the Republican incumbent is running for reelection; the other seven are open, Republican-controlled seats.
09. 25. 2018

Arming teachers is reckless and puts our kids in danger

In the face of overwhelming evidence that arming teachers will make gun violence even more likely, students, parents, teachers and school safety experts – including police officers and the nation’s two largest organizations of education professionals – have voiced their opposition to this senseless and dangerous policy. In 2018 alone, Moms Demand Action volunteers helped convince 16 state legislatures to reject legislation that would have allowed guns in schools.
09. 25. 2018

Bloomberg-founded gun control group launches ads to flip 15 GOP House districts

Everytown for Gun Safety, the group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is rolling out a $5 million digital ad campaign targeting 15 House races, as the group continues heavy investment in the midterm elections. The pro-gun control group announced plans to target House districts embedded in suburban communities outside of cities like Atlanta, Kansas City, Miami and Minneapolis. The 15 districts are all featured on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” target list, a program that denotes top-tier races.
09. 19. 2018

Former gun-friendly Democrats are battling the NRA and winning, but they face a tougher test in November

But pro-gun control lobbies are countering the NRA's war chest, thanks in big part to former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who launched Everytown for Gun Safety. Bloomberg also largely funds Moms Demand Action, which was launched following the Sandy Hook Elementary School school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Bloomberg has been pumping millions into Everytown, which has seen an increase in 265,000 individual donors in the past two years. It is unclear whether the pro-gun control Democrats' success in the primaries will translate to the midterms, and experts say it depends largely on activist voter turnout. There's some evidence that the gun-control movement could be a political force this November.
09. 16. 2018

Gun control group’s political arm pouring millions into midterm elections

The fund, the political arm of the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, plans to spend $8 million to $10 million in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico as an initial investment in the election. It will include contributions to candidates, as well as independent expenditures such as mail, television, radio and digital ads. “This is not a movement of blue states. This is a movement of Americans,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit organization. “The old third-rail warnings are out the window and you can redraw the map and work on gun safety virtually anywhere in this country.
09. 10. 2018

Can the anti-gun-violence movement outraise–and outspend–the NRA?

Everytown for Gun Safety, a leading gun violence prevention group founded by Michael Bloomberg, who initially seeded the organization with $50 million in 2014, doesn’t like to reduce their efforts to simple economics. But they admit donations are already fueling their fight against the NRA’s agenda: Bloomberg has kept pumping his own millions into Everytown, but 350,000 individual donors have also join the cause (up from 85,000 donors two years ago). “Look at the Virginia races last year in the NRA’s own backyard and you see we had a total sweep,” says Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, part of the Everytown coalition.
10. 08. 2018

Everytown for Gun Safety endorses Gina Raimondo for second term as Governor

Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund today endorsed Governor Gina Raimondo for re-election in the September 12 Democratic Primary said gun violence survivor Giovanna Rodriguez at a ceremony held by the Moms Demand Action Rhode Island in South Providence Friday afternoon. Everytown is “a movement of Americans working together to end gun violence and build safer communities.
09. 08. 2018

Gov. Cuomo gets endorsement of nation's largest gun control group

Everytown for Gun Safety endorsed Cuomo during a campaign event on Long Island. He was also endorsed by the father of a Parkland student killed in February. Fred Guttenberg, who attempted to shake the hand of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, this week said reducing gun violence should be on everyone’s minds when they go to vote in coming weeks. “This vote this year is everything on this issue,” Guttenberg said at the rally. “Everytown is proud to endorse Governor Cuomo, who doesn’t just talk big about gun safety—he delivers big results in the form of life-saving gun laws,” John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said. “Thanks to his leadership, New York is on the frontlines of the charge to keep firearms away from people with dangerous histories.
09. 07. 2018

Julianne Moore describes how her young daughter found out about Sandy Hook, and it's so sad

The failure to stop Liv from hearing the news changed Moore's perspective entirely, sparking her involvement with Everytown for Gun Safety, where she calls for an end to gun violence through activism as a founding chairperson of their creative council. "Basically I felt like I wasn’t being a responsible citizen or a responsible parent if I wasn’t doing something about the issue of gun violence in the United States. So I gathered all these people in the entertainment industry who were kind of willing to speak out against gun violence," she said. "It’s interesting because my daughter and I went down to the Mom’s Demand conference this July, and there were 1,200 people there. The very first conference I think five years ago, there were 60 people. Last year there were 500. So it’s a movement that’s growing in size and in influence, and that’s very exciting."
09. 07. 2018

School discipline is racist enough for black students like me. Arming teachers will make it worse.

Across the country, Students Demand Action volunteers like me are calling Congress and demanding a stop to downloadable guns and arming our teachers. Both of these proposals will make school more dangerous — particularly for students of color. Congress must act to stop these proposals that put our lives at risk. If they won’t stand up for our safety, we’ll stand up to vote them out in November.
08. 31. 2018

If we want gun safety in America, Brett Kavanaugh will not help us

If Judge Kavanaugh becomes a Supreme Court Justice, his approach to the Second Amendment could also call into question a number of other important gun safety measures of relatively recent vintage, including red flag laws, which empower family members and law enforcement to seek a court order temporarily restricting access to guns when a person poses a danger to self or others, domestic violence restraining order laws that disarm domestic abusers and prohibit them from owning firearms, and even laws requiring criminal background checks on all gun sales.
09. 04. 2018

Levi Strauss CEO sets up fund to help groups working to lessen U.S. gun violence

Bergh in his letter announced the company’s establishment of the Safer Tomorrow Fund, which intends to funnel grants totaling more than $1 million over the next four years to nonprofits working to end gun violence in the country. Bergh said the company also would double all donations made by its employees to the Safer Tomorrow Fund. And Strauss & Co. will be working with Everytown for Gun Safety, which former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg set up in 2014 to, according to its mission statement, help build “a movement of Americans working together to end gun violence and build safer communities.
09. 04. 2018

Levi Strauss CEO: Why business leaders need to take a stand on gun violence

Second, I’m proud to announce that Levi Strauss & Co. is partnering with Everytown for Gun Safety and executives including Michael Bloomberg to form Everytown Business Leaders for Gun Safety, a coalition of business leaders who believe, as we do, that business has a critical role to play in and a moral obligation to do something about the gun violence epidemic in this country. I encourage every CEO and business leader reading this to consider the impact we could make if we stood together alongside the broad coalition of concerned parents, youth, elders, veterans, and community and faith leaders who are committed to shaping a safer path forward.
08. 30. 2018

I Survived Parkland And I Have An Urgent Message For Congress On 3D-Printed Guns

Others have to step up and do everything they can, too, in order to ensure children in our country are safe from gun violence. That’s why I was so horrified to learn that the Trump administration recently took steps to allow a private company to distribute blueprints online that anyone with a 3D printer can use to print their own untraceable guns.
08. 28. 2018

No one from the public spoke directly in favor of arming educators. "Arming teachers is an incredibly dangerous policy and [the department] should drop any plans to allow schools to use taxpayer money to buy guns," said Adam Vincent, who spoke on behalf of Mom's Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a grassroots lobbying organization. Vincent recalled a friend who committed suicide using a handgun.
08. 27. 2018

I survived a school shooting. Arming teachers is a dangerous idea.

If I had a gun, would I have left my terrified students? Never. Would I have been able to find, approach, and fire at the shooter and not someone else? What if a child got in the way? It’s completely unrealistic—ludicrous even—to think an educator with a gun would have been able to navigate all of this in such a short period of time and take down the gunman without interfering with law enforcement’s response, harming or killing other educators, or God forbid, children. Even trained, armed resource officers have rarely taken down shooters, and their only job is to protect.
08. 22. 2018

Students Demand Action gives young people a platform to end gun violence

Two days after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School this past February in Parkland, Florida, 16-year-old Julia Spoor knew she needed to speed up her plans to form a student-led gun violence prevention group under the umbrella of Everytown for Gun Safety. “After [the massacre] we kind of just snapped into action and Students Demand Action was founded two days later by me and two other gun violence prevention activists,” said Julia. Julia began working with Moms Demand Action in the movement to end gun violence in 2015. Her dad died by suicide with a gun when she was 8 which means her connection to the issue is very personal.
08. 23. 2018

What gun safety? NRA using lawsuits to shoot down local gun-storage laws

In fact, activists have also been trying to get the relevant state law changed, collecting signatures for a ballot initiative that would make safe storage requirements a statewide policy. The NRA successfully killed that effort as well, convincing a judge to throw out the proposed ballot initiative because the font on the petitions was too small. “Why would they be opposed to something that is common sense, when we know there’s a risk from unsafely stored firearms?" asked Laura Hitchcock, a volunteer with the North Seattle branch of Moms Demand Action, in an interview with Salon.
08. 21. 2018

States aim to stop internet release of 3D-printed gun plans

More than a dozen members of the Washington Chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America filled half the courtroom during the hearing wearing red T-shirts. They later said they agreed that the answer lies in Washington, D.C. “We do believe in the right to own a gun, but we also believe in this country our rights rest of a foundation of shared responsibility to keep all members of society safe,” group spokeswoman Sue Whitecomb said. “And we believe that is the job of Congress.
08. 20. 2018

High school senior April Ma explains how “Students Demand Action” is working to end gun violence

I channeled my anger and frustration into action by founding my local Johnson County, Kansas, chapter of Students Demand Action, a national initiative created by teens and young adults who are ready to join the gun violence prevention movement and demand change. We knew that change wouldn’t come without responsible lawmakers, so we worked quickly to figure out how to make a difference before the midterm elections. Weeks after our founding, we hosted a town hall for the Third Congressional District of Kansas. We also began holding voter registration drives to make sure as many students as possible are registered.
08. 10. 2018

Gun safety advocates set their sights on elected office

Shannon Watts, a mother of five in Indiana, started the Moms Demand Action Facebook page that grew into a movement the day after those 20 students and six educators were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in December 2012. The group partnered with Mayors Against Illegal Guns, co-founded by Bloomberg, under the umbrella of Everytown for Gun Safety.
08. 09. 2018

The Democratic party’s new litmus test: gun control

Mr. Bloomberg’s groups have spent more than $200 million building an army of 5 million supporters and a crew of lobbyists in state capitols. Giffords, a gun-control organization named for former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords , who survived a 2011 shooting, has about 1.4 million supporters. “The truth is there was really no grass roots on the gun-safety side,” Everytown President John Feinblatt says. “The NRA put out an emergency alert, and the switchboards on Capitol Hill and state capitols lit up like the Fourth of July. We didn’t have that kind of power.” Mr. Feinblatt borrowed a strategy from the same-sex-marriage movement, which focused on winning state and local victories before moving on Washington. In 2014, Everytown spent $400,000 on Democrats in Oregon state senate races. Oregon was the only state in which Democrats gained statehouse seats during the 2014 GOP wave. The next year, Oregon enacted a law requiring background checks for all gun purchases.
08. 07. 2018

How to raise an ‘army of angry moms and women’ from your own kitchen

By Watts’ count, in this past year’s state and local legislative sessions, volunteers with Moms Demand Action have helped kill 90 percent of NRA-backed bills and passed 1,000 bills of their own. Having the financial and organizational support from being brought into Mike Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety umbrella helps, but mostly, it’s the army of unpaid women on phone and email trees, piling into state capital hearing rooms in matching T-shirts.
07. 31. 2018

Veterans gun reform group urges government to continue ban on 3-D printed guns

“A group of veterans who advise the largest gun control advocacy organization in the United States urged the State Department to halt its plans to allow downloadable designs for 3-D-printed guns to be published online. The Veterans Advisory Council for Everytown for Gun Safety described the printable, hard-to-trace guns as a threat to national security and public safety. In a letter, 15 veterans on the council called on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to step in and block blueprints to manufacture the guns from being posted online, which is slated to start Wednesday.”
07. 31. 2018

How to stop downloadable guns from becoming a dangerous reality

“MarieClaire.com reached out to Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action—the grassroots arm of Everytown, a non-profit dedicated to common-sense gun reform (one of the three organizations, along with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, that recently attempted to block the decision in a Texas court), to help educate the public about what they can do to stop downloadable, plastic guns from becoming our new normal.”
07. 25. 2018

Lucy McBath: Moved to run for Congress by son’s fatal shooting, she just won her primary

“After her son’s death, McBath, a longtime Delta flight attendant, quit her job and shifted her focus to advocating for gun control, serving as a national spokesperson for Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. She appeared on major news networks, testified before Congress, starred in documentaries and spoke at numerous rallies. At the 2016 Democratic National Convention, she took the stage along with eight other mothers whose African American children had been killed by the police or by gun violence. She stood alongside President Barack Obama in 2016 when he announced executive actions on gun restrictions. But, it was only last year that McBath decided to run for public office.”
07. 24. 2018

U.S. gun control groups seek to block distribution of 3-D gun blueprints

Bereaved mom McBath pushes gun control as she bids to win Georgia seat for Democrats

“It was days after the Parkland school massacre and proposals to cut gun violence and make schools safer were back at the top of the agenda. That should have been music to the ears of McBath, who became a spokeswoman for gun law advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety after her own son was killed. Except for one thing. "I never believed him," said McBath.”
06. 26. 2018

Lucy McBath lost her son to gun violence. Next came activism. Now she's running for Congress

“In 2012, Lucy McBath lost her son Jordan Davis when he was shot and killed in Florida. The shooter didn’t like the music Davis was playing from his car and was eventually convicted of first-degree murder. (Davis' story was the subject of the 2015 documentary 3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets.) McBath has since become an activist, working with Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. She appeared onstage at the 2016 Democratic National Convention as part of Mothers of the Movement.”
06. 25. 2018

10 years after Heller: Fiery gun rights rhetoric, but courts back Second Amendment limits

“The Supreme Court decided the landmark Second Amendment case District of Columbia v. Heller 10 years ago Tuesday, recognizing for the first time an individual right of “law-abiding, responsible citizens” to have a gun in the home for self-defense. But as students from Parkland to Chicago focus our attention on the scourge of gun violence, it’s important to remember what Heller also made clear: the constitutional right to keep and bear arms is not absolute.”
06. 24. 2018

Kids speak up about school shootings

“Jack Castanoli, 16, a rising junior at York Community High School in Elmhurst, Illinois. He volunteers with Students Demand Action. I grew up and I always saw these shootings and it was just like it was so normalized. I got used to it. During the lockdown drills, it's almost treated as a joke. Almost. We've had these lockdown drills probably since elementary school. It's never happened to us. But there's always that little fear in the back of my mind that someday it'll happen to me. It hasn't really affected me physically. Yet. That's a big yet, because it can happen to any high school. Emotionally; yeah, it's taking a toll.”
06. 20. 2018

“To mark the fifth anniversary of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, Christian Siriano, Bonnie Young and Cynthia Rowley have teamed up with Rebecca Cohen, a volunteer with the Oregon chapter of the organization, to produce T-shirts honoring the advocates who have taken on the gun lobby in their states, and who have empowered others to do the same. The collection entitled "Moms Demand Action's Five Year Commemorative Tees " — shop below — launches Wednesday on Everytown for Gun Safety's online store.”
06. 20. 2018

Designers create t-shirts for gun safety

“Cynthia Rowley, Christian Siriano and Bonnie Young have designed T-shirts to mark Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America’s five-year anniversary. In addition, graphic designer Rebecca Cohen, a volunteer with the Oregon chapter of Moms Demand Action, has designed a T-shirt. The shirts are being launched by Everytown Fashion Council, part of the Everytown Creative Council.”
06. 18. 2018

“In the five years since the founding of Moms Demand Action, we’ve made great strides to reduce gun violence. But more needs to be done. As it currently stands, more than 10,300 gun-related hate crimes occur in an average year in the U.S. — that’s more than 28 each a day. The vast majority of these crimes — 58 percent — are motivated by racism, with a quarter of all hate crimes targeting Black Americans.”
06. 17. 2018

I'm fighting for my slain loved ones

“We must look inside our souls and ask ourselves: Can we stand by and let this continue to happen? Can we continue to allow our lawmakers to be complicit and offer only thoughts and prayers when we are being gunned down while praying, while dancing, in our homes or while walking the streets? Since Charleston, since Orlando, since Parkland, and since every other shooting in between that doesn’t make the headlines, many of our members of Congress have sat by and watched their constituents be killed and wounded by gun violence. Even worse, they’ve answered our nation’s gun violence crisis by introducing legislation that would weaken our gun laws instead of strengthening them to keep guns out of hateful hands. I for one won’t let that continue.”
06. 16. 2018

Wave of ‘Red Flag’ gun laws shows power of the Parkland effect

“Gun safety advocates say the policies have emerged as a rare point of agreement between the parties as politicians face aggressive calls to respond to a string of bloody mass shootings and other gun violence. “Lawmakers are feeling pressure to do something,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, calling the laws a moderate step forward. “It is really difficult to argue with removing guns from someone who poses a danger to themselves or others.”
06. 15. 2018

Anti-gun violence advocate Shannon Watts on how change will come by thinking small

““Congress is not where this work begins but where it ends,” Watts said during a panel discussion at TheWrap’s Power Women Breakfast on Friday at New York City’s Time Warner Center. “We are fighting in the states.” Watts said her organization, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, had “a 90 percent track record of killing NRA bills” at the state level but had also played an instrumental role in passing “good bills” across the country to restrict access to firearms. Watts cited laws across the country that closed background-check loopholes and disarmed domestic abusers.”
06. 13. 2018

Everytown for Gun Safety claims a political win in New Jersey

“New Jersey just passed a "Red Flag" bill that will allow local authorities to temporarily confiscate guns from people who are considered to be a risk to society or themselves. Why it matters: Since the Parkland shooting, five states have now passed this legislation, including three with Republican governors, signaling a shift in how statehouses are viewing and acting on the issue of gun violence. Everytown for Gun Safety, a Michael Bloomberg-financed nonprofit that advocates for stronger gun safety laws, has been a major political force behind this movement.”
06. 13. 2018